Madeleine. Now we lounge into the courtyard
of the Louvre, and there see a squad
of men with complete uniforms, learning
the Chassepot drill. A sergeant who has
seen battles, thunders out his directions.
He carries his own Chassepot, draws it
back as if to meet a charge, and they do
the same. Then he opens the breech-
loading part, takes an imaginary cartridge,
and puts it in, clicks all home, and is
faithfully imitated. An enormous crowd of
women and men stand round, and, true to the
French character, laugh at the awkward:
the men laugh too. The officer walks round
with a sad and rather weary air, very
different from the pert and fussy officiousness
usual on a peace parade. To me there was
something very depressing in this spectacle,
and in the laughter, which, on the men's
side, was hollow enough; for these soldiers
thus hurried through drill were to be sent
off in the morning to the front, and it was
evident were being merely taught how to
load and handle their weapons.

Never did Paris look so beautiful as at
this moment, never was the air more balmy
and delicious, the scene more enjoyable.
The trees on the Boulevards still display
their honours; the assiduous laying of the
dust goes on; the ladies drive about in their
victorias. And yet there is a lurid and
heated look over all, an indescribable
restlessness and flutter, which even a stranger
cannot help catching. Every one, too, is
devouring newspapers that tell no news,
and indeed are too often full of a childish
rant and vapouring which would make
one smile, if they were not mere ravings of
over-excited brains. On the "Times" are
outpoured all the vials of rage and
contempt, and if spitting on, or fist-shaking in
the face, or kicking, could be done in type,
that ill-advised journal has been mobbed
and trampled on a hundred times. Otherwise,
the supposed lack of British sympathy
would have been too impalpable a thing for
even a sensitive nation to lay hold of. But
this feeling has taken palpable shape in a
terrible and odious bogie, and the taunts
and cold sneers of the great English journal
are served up every day, with the sauce of
bitter comment, and, with such epithets as
"menteur," "poltron," inflaming the people
to madness.

II. AT THE FORTIFICATIONS.

BUT a string of cabs and omnibuses, to
say nothing of great trains of fascines and
of stone, has been hurrying across the
Elysian Fields, up the hill, through the great
Arch of Triumph. It is rather a fashionable
distraction to take a drive and look how
the fortifications are getting on. This
sort of thing prevents us feeding on our
own excited thoughts, and is like assurances
perpetually reiterated, that all will be well
yet. Is there not a certain sublimity of
audacity in the following? We see the
office of the Western Railway on the
Boulevards, all glittering in new paint
and gaudy show-boards, and read in
characters, not a week old, that passengers
and goods are taken to Forbach, Metz,
Strasbourg, and other places on the line!
The window of the leading music-shop is
dazzling with panoramic music, with rows
upon rows of Zouaves and banners, over
whom is inscribed Le Rhin Allemand, that
song being still on sale. There are others
with a kindred tune. The Rhine is ours!
To the Frontier! The Rhine for France!
with other aspirations, now, alas! so
hopelessly vain.

At the barrier we shall find a curious
scene. In front, crossing the road, are
scaffolding and masonry, and a crowd
of workmen busy as bees; and within
a week has been run up, and stands
just finished, a massive wall, duly pierced
for cannon, and with platforms and gateways.
It will be finished in a day or two,
and monster gates, the size of canal
lock-gates, lie on the ground ready to be fixed
in their places. It is curious to note a
national contrast here. With these works
of importance, and this enormous crowd,
coming and going, there are but two or
three policemen to keep order, and the
great omnibuses and all the carriages and
passengers still pass through the works,
and stop and stand about, without in the
least interfering with the workmen. At
home we would have a whole posse of
Colonel Henderson's men, and no one
allowed within, perhaps, a quarter of a mile.
But the French are the best-behaved people
in the world. Walking round, and following
the line of the fortifications, it is again
wonderful to see how much has been
done in the short time since the panic
began. Embrasures have been sliced at
every ten yards or so, and a cannon
mounted. But these seem to be field-pieces
on wheels, and look old-fashioned enough.
Then we come to the bewitching and
coquettish wood of Boulogne, where another
barrier of masonry is nearly finished, and
where, alas! they are rudely lopping away
the trees, sparing, indeed, the trunks, in
the hope that in happier times they might